Guns 'N Roses' Duff McKagan to release solo album in 2019

music news
10/12/2018

Duff McKagan, best known for being the iconic Guns N' Roses' bassist, has a new solo album on the way, due out some time in 2019.

He's been working with producer Shooter Jennings on what he's calling a "musical follow-up" to has 2015 book How to Be a Man (And Other Illusions). The songs for the so-far untitled record were inspired by McKagan's global travels on Guns N' Roses' 'Not in This Lifetime' tour, according to a press release.

“I wrote a couple of articles about historical places I passed through on this last tour, and people kept asking if that was going to be the focus of my next book. But an unseen and irrepressible force guided me to write little vignettes of reflective prose …little instant-reactions. The heartbreak, anger, fear, confusion and divide I have experienced over the last two and a half years of traveling this globe of ours coerced these words into songs that tell my truth, and one that I hope will spread and help us all. I do this for my daughters … I do this for my love of where I grew up …I do this because I truly feel it must be done and said right now," McKagan said.

“From the first night we sat together at my piano hashing out arrangements of his songs, before going into the studio to record them, I felt it was a really important record that had to be heard. The songs have so much heart and are so musical that I could just hear all the arrangements immediately and I could really feel them," said producer Jennings.

The son of country legends Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, Shooter Jennings has been recording as a solo artist since 2005 and portrayed his father in 'Walk the Line', the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic. He began recording with McKagan at Station House studios in Echo Park, California, back in March this year, and fit sessions in between both of their busy schedules. They have shared a long-standing friendship, and this is the latest step for the pair.

“I met Duff right after I moved to Los Angeles nearly 20 years ago," Jennings noted. "I was such a massive Guns N' Roses fan when I was younger. I'd say that they had a lot to do with me even moving to L.A. But there was some kind of magnetic force, I guess, that kept us orbiting each other over the years. When the idea of collaborating with him on this album came up, I was very eager to get the job as producer. I felt like the music this man made was part of the fabric of my own musical identity and that I would really love building a record with him. Once we sat down and started going over the songs he had, I instantly knew that the two of us were going to be a great fit together.”